Hackaday

Hackaday is a daily blog that features numerous articles focused on hardware and software hacks. A hack can mean altering an existing product or software, or inventing something new for purposes like convenience, creativity, or functionality. In addition to the blog, Hackaday operates a YouTube channel where they share project ideas and instructional videos.

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When Wireless MIDI Has Latency, A Hardwired Solution Saves The Day

12 hours ago | hackaday.com | Lewin Day

[Moby Pixel] wanted to build a fun MIDI controller. In the end, he didn’t build it just once, but twice—with the aim of finding out which microcontroller was most fit for this musical purpose. Pitted against each other? The ESP32 and Raspberry Pi Pico. The MIDI controller itself is quite fetching. It’s built with a 4 x 4 array of arcade buttons to act as triggers for MIDI notes or events. They’re assembled in a nice wooden case with a lovely graphic wrap on it.
3D Pen Used To Build Cleaning Robot That Picks Up Socks

18 hours ago | hackaday.com | Lewin Day

Your average 3D printer is just a nozzle shooting out hot plastic while being moved around by a precise robotic mechanism. There’s nothing stopping you replacing the robot and moving around the plastic-squirting nozzle yourself. That’s precisely what [3D Sanago] did to produce this cute little robot. The beginning of the video sets the tone. “First we create the base that will become the robot vacuum’s body,” explains [3D Sanago].
Soviet Calculator Teardown Reveals Similarities And Differences

1 day ago | hackaday.com | Lewin Day

Tearing down hardware from different parts of the world can be revealing, showing unique parts, techniques, and tricks employed by engineers living in a very different world from our own. To that end, [msylvain59] has been kind enough to give us a look inside the Elektronika MK-26—a calculator built in the former Soviet Union. There’s lots of interesting stuff to see from the get-go.
Building An Analog Echo Plate

2 days ago | hackaday.com | Lewin Day

These days, when you think reverb, you probably think about a guitar pedal or a plugin in your audio software. But you can also create reverb with a big metal plate and the right supporting electronics. [Tully] from [The Tul Studio] shows us how. Basically, if you’ve ever smacked a big sheet of metal and heard the thunderous, rippling sound it makes, you already understand the concept here.
Supercon 2024: From Consultant To Prototyper On A Shoestring Budget

2 days ago | hackaday.com | Lewin Day

Many engineers graduate from their studies and head out into the workforce, seeking a paycheck and a project at some existing company or other. Often, it’s not long before an experienced engineer begins to contemplate striking out on their own, working as a skilled gun-for-hire that makes their own money and their own hours. It’s a daunting leap, but with the promise of rich rewards for those that stick the landing. That very leap is one that our own Dave Rowntree made.
A Steady Vacuum For The Fastest Cassette Tape Drive Ever

2 days ago | hackaday.com | Jenny List

If you think of a 1960s mainframe computer, it’s likely that your mental image includes alongside the cabinets with the blinkenlights, a row of reel-to-reel tape drives. These refrigerator-sized units had a superficial resemblance to an audio tape deck, but with the tape hanging down in a loop either side of the head assembly. This loop was held by a vacuum to allow faster random access speeds at the head, and this fascinates [Thorbjörn Jemander].
Passive Saturation Box Is A Cheap Way To Distort Your Sound

2 days ago | hackaday.com | Lewin Day

Distortion pedals and overdrive effects usually have a bunch of lovely transistors or op-amps inside and lots of knobs and dials to tweak the sound to your personal taste. However, it’s possible to get some crunchiness in your audio signal without all that fuss, as [Simon Hutchinson] demonstrates with his $2 “analog saturation box”. The effect is achieved quite simply by installing a pair of diodes in opposite orientations, connected from the signal path to ground.
FLOSS Weekly Episode 835: Board Member B

3 days ago | hackaday.com | Jonathan Bennett

This week Jonathan and Rob chat with Nate Graham about KDE! Why did Nate walk away from Apple, and how did he find Linux and KDE? And what does he see coming next? Watch to find out!https://invent.kde.org/ngrahamhttps://pointieststick.comhttps://techpaladinsoftware.comDid you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.
A Vintage ‘Scope Comes Back To Life

3 days ago | hackaday.com | Jenny List

We’re suckers for a vintage electronic teardown here at Hackaday, and thus it’s pleasing to see [Thomas Scherrer OZ2CPU] with a 1962 AEG oscilloscope on his bench. It’s definitely seen better days, and is a single-trace 10 MHz unit of the type you might have seen in a typical general purpose electronics lab back in the day. Pulling the cover off, and as expected there’s a row of tubes each side of the centrally mounted CRT.
High-Stakes Fox Hunting: The FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division In World War II

3 days ago | hackaday.com | Dan Maloney

With few exceptions, amateur radio is a notably sedentary pursuit. Yes, some hams will set up in a national or state park for a “Parks on the Air” activation, and particularly energetic operators may climb a mountain for “Summits on the Air,” but most hams spend a lot of time firmly planted in a comfortable chair, spinning the dials in search of distant signals or familiar callsigns to add to their logbook. There’s another exception to the band-surfing tendencies of hams: fox hunting.